I tried to take Will Ashon’s portrait. Somehow things got mixed up and it ended as an iPhone thing. Here’s what we have to say about it…

Shorter is an app for iPhone and iPad featuring a collection of eighty nine very short stories by Will Ashon for very short trips. A random story is chosen for you to read each time the app is opened. Making it an ideal companion for travel (a story between stops) or toilet breaks.

New stories will be automatically added at unexpected moments, magically sent over the airwaves without having to download the app again, with a little red dot marking their arrival.

Will Ashon is the author of two novels “Clear Water” and “Heritage” both published by Faber and Faber. The app comes decorated with a lovely illustration by Timothy Hunt. It costs 69p, less than a penny a tale and will last longer than a Mars Bar, unless you are an exceptional slow eater.

Here’s what other people have said about it…

“…excellent value for money; the stories never disappoint with their surreal take on early 21st-century life” – Nicola Presley, The Literary Platform.Read the full review

“A dead-on depiction of early 21st Century life that soon gives way to something much wilder and stranger. The best collection of short stories I’ve read in years.” – Matt Thorne (Cherry, 8 Minutes Idle, Prince)

“Funny, smart, playful, twisted and devastatingly precise” – Peter Hobbs (The Short Day Dying, I Could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train)

I once did some work for the man who designed Bluewater, which led me to read Clearwater, a book by Will Ashon. I liked it. So I wanted to take his portrait. By some curious twist of fate this translated into “shall we make an iPhone app”.

So we did.

It will be available soon from all good iTunes stores for iPad, iPhones and iThings. It features 89 very short stories by Mr Ashon and because every book needs a cover and because fate has already played a hand, why not, I thought, ask Timothy Hunt better known as Fickle Fate to draw some nice pictures for it. Which he did. Which was nice.

So there you go. My first iPhone app featuring stories from Will Ashon and a drawing by Timothy Hunt. I’ll let you know when you can buy a copy.

Back in the summer of 2005 I proposed the interaction for a collaborative soundwork with Adam Hoyle. Providing the graphics for web based version, but the project fell into the weeds during a hiatus sourcing suitable sounds. Then there was some discussion about changing the sound/image symbiosis from ‘Ring’ to ‘Wave’. I presumed such procrastination from myself meant the project had withered.

But since then Adam decided to re-code it for iPhones and iPads, I got a call last December requesting a design for a simplified interface along with a logo. He also asked the composer Nick Ryan to create the audio for it along the lines of my original intention, something like a Tibetan temple bowl pushed to explore the three extremes of attack, sustain and decay.

Yesterday an email arrived announcing ‘Ring’ is live and for sale at iTunes.